Just to get caught up

Well, I had actually hoped to have lots of cool pictures and stories to talk about by now, but the weather just hasn’t cooperated.  Four score and seven days ago we were planning on going up to Gettysburg but it was raining like crazy so we had to cancel.  Then this last weekend we were supposed to go to a maritime carnival with seafood, boating events, and “living history” (aka more nerds in old costumes) but it was 105° so we decided to just go to Target and Toys R Us and even then we were dying of the heat.  So, no cool stories to tell, but there are a couple little fun things going on that I can talk about to hopefully make for some interesting reading.

Here’s an updated picture of baby Reagan.

We’re quickly falling in love with her big eyes that get bluer and bluer each day.  Unfortunately a lot of her long newborn hair has started to fall out – we haven’t had this much black hair on our stuff since we had our black cat.  But the long hair is at least being replaced with more hair, even though right now she just has a wicked-awesome mullet. 

She has become such an even-tempered little sweetheart that I’m starting to wonder what we did to deserve such good kids.  I’m hesitant to say it, but we’ve even been lucky enough to have her sleep through the night for almost a week.  She still squeaks every once in a while so Thesha will get up and put her binky back in, but then she’ll fall right back to sleep.  Of course we did have one night where Thesha had to give her a little bottle again, but at least it’s not two bottles a night for a hour each time trying to have her eat and go back to sleep.  The first night it happened I was actually out of town.  I got back and Thesha was so excited to tell me about it.  She had just adjusted her schedule so she figured she would just let Reagan wake up and cry to let her know when she was ready to eat but then the whole night went by and there was nothing more than a few squeaks.  So that night we tried it again and sure enough she was sleeping through the night with next to no effort on our part.  We almost don’t know what to do with all the sleep we’ve been getting.  Who am I kidding, we know exactly what to do with it – sleep.  (That’s right you pervs that thought I was going to say something else.)

Tyler’s becoming quite the chatter-box.  He’s started being able to mix in real words with his jabbering and has even graduated from single words to short phrases.  His phrase de jour… “Uh, oh. I made a mess.”  Now where did he pick that up from?

Here’s a fun picture of his latest sleeping habit.  I don’t know how he manages to get all the crap in his crib piled on top of himself, but Thesha got the proof with this picture.

Since you can’t really see who this is under the pillow, blanket, and stuffed dog, I figured I had better add a decent picture of his face as well.

Well, that’s about it for now.  Hopefully we’ll have something more exciting to blog about soon.

A Fun Filled Week

I know this post comes a day later than usual, but there was just a lot going on this week and it took a little longer than usual to get everything together.  While it was a little crazy, we definitely had a lot of fun.

Dad showed up on Tuesday night and spent Wednesday and Thursday driving Tyler around.  They went…well…wherever the road took them.  It’s a good thing Dad had his GPS otherwise we’d probably still be looking for them.    I know Tyler and Grandpa had a good time, but in all honesty I think Thesha enjoyed the break even more.

It just wouldn’t be a vacation without good food, so we had to first take Dad to Woody’s Crab House for some crab, clams, and shrimp.  And of course it just wouldn’t be dinner at a restaurant with Dad without him making an inappropriate comment to the waitress about whether or not she had a younger sister for Tyler and a good looking mom for himself.  This is why I’ll never take Dad to Hooters – not even as a joke.

Thankfully the only thing more appealing to Dad than cute waitresses is his affinity for tropical fish and sail boats.  So on Friday we went to the Baltimore National Aquarium (walking past the Hooters).  The Aquarium is located in what’s called the Inner Harbor.  We had heard about this, but never had a chance to go until now.  There was a lot to do there but way too much for one day so we just stuck with the plan of going to the aquarium.

 

If you look through all the aquarium pictures you’ll see one with a pirate ship and a big hill behind the ship with an American flag flying.  The big hill is actually Ft. McHenry.  This is where the “Star Spangled Banner” was flying during the War of 1812 that inspired Francis Scott Key to pen our national anthem.  We didn’t have time to visit but it was kind of cool to see the big American flag flying on the weekend we celebrated the 4th of July.

Later Friday evening, Thesha’s dad arrived.  With two Grandpa’s in tow, we went to Turkey Point Lighthouse for a little nature walk and a view of the Chesapeake Bay.  It was a really fun time for Tyler who took turns running around with Dad, Grandpa, and Grandpa.  Afterwards we stopped by Captain Chris’ Crab Shack for some more Maryland seafood.  Even though Thesha’s dad is “not much of a connoisseur of seafood” (his words, translation = doesn’t Maryland have a Steak Shack somewhere?) he was a good sport and tried some of their incredible crab legs.  

 

In addition to all these activities, we found some time to sit and talk as well as take Tyler swimming a couple times, but the party really reached its peak when we went to the 4th of July carnival and fireworks in Havre de Grace.  The Grandpas bought a bunch of ride tickets for Tyler and he had a ball.  Thesha brought enough food to feed the entire Nicholas family so the five of us ate well, laughed loud, and stayed up late.  We even got to enjoy something new for a 4th of July celebration…a view of something besides the back of North Davis Jr. High!  Since the fireworks were shot out of a small island in the harbor, a bunch of boats pulled out into the harbor to watch the fireworks which meant we got a nice view of all of them. 

 

Even though it was hard to talk about it over the roar of Neil Diamond singing “We’re coming to America” over the loud speaker, we all enjoyed sitting under a big tree in the park, eating some sandwiches, and looking out over the Chesapeake.  Notice that I didn’t say we enjoyed watching the actual fireworks.  As it turns out, there was a reason why no one had claimed our “sweet” spot.  Much like the giant tree behind us, there was an equally obstructive tree in front of us which was specifically planted 75 years ago to stop us from actually seeing the fireworks.  I ended up walking a few yards away and holding Tyler so at least he could see what the crap we had been keeping him awake for.  At least we’ll know better for next year.

 

Then of course there was the baby blessing for Reagan.  When we first found out we were pregnant and showed up here in Maryland I thought for sure that the circle for the baby blessing would just be me and some Deacon with a microphone.  Then when I saw how small our chapel was I figured I was being overly optimistic about the need to include a microphone.  Thankfully I was able to be joined by two Dads and a cousin.  I guess technically that made us a square not a circle, but whatever.  The member of the Bishopric rounded us out enough to make it enough of a circle.

Here’s our little angel with the members of the square circle.

 

In addition to these handsome young men, Reagan was also surrounded by some beautiful young women on her special day.  Reagan truly is blessed to have such wonderful family members in her life.  Thank you to everyone who joined us that day as well as to Thesha’s mom for sacrificing a month to be with us to make sure we were taken care of when Reagan arrived.

Well, if you’ve gotten this far you’ve probably neglected your family, work, or whatever long enough but thanks for hanging in there with me.  If you want to push your luck a little farther, the names of the places we visited are a different color font because they’re actually hyperlinks to sites about those locations.  Go check them out so you get really excited about coming out to visit us.  Sorry Dad but you’ll just have to do a Google search for Hooters.